Q & A Excerpts from: http://trade.in.on.ca/ IMPORTANT information on Writing/ripping VCD's. Alot of people are having trouble writing proper VCD's that will work in everything, including VCD Players/PSX VCD Mods/DVD Players and more. Here is the information you will need. #1 RULE - DO NOT Copy the .DAT straight off the CD, in some circumstances it will work, but in most it won't so it's a good idea to get used to ripping a CD properly. A .DAT is NOT the same as mpeg, it's a slightly different format used for writing VCD's, so in MOST cases this .dat will not write a proper VCD. ---=== VCD Q & A ===--- Question: What do you mean?? I take the DAT file, and write proper VCD's all the time Answer: This may be the case, but is your VCD really proper. Adaptec VCD Creator will ALWAYS write a cd that is compatible with the computer, but just because it runs with software VCD players doesn't mean it's properly written. Software players are just more forgiving than Real Stand-alone DVD/VCD players. There is a way to check to see if your VCD is properly written or not. If you VCD has one of the following symptoms it is a badly written CD and will not work in all players. CD has only 1 Track total - On a real VCD the first track is simply a pointer to the raw data on the subsequent tracks. For every properly written VCD, there must be at least 1 track for every mpg file used to create the cd. So a VCD made with 4 mpg's will contain 5 tracks. The main .DAT file is sitting in the Segment Directory, instead of the MpegAV Directory. Mpegav Directory is where all the movie information is stored. The Segment directory is where menu items, slideshows etc. reside. If you main dat is here, it's not good. Q: What is wrong with just making a VCD from a .dat file? A: A .dat file is NOT a .mpg file, it is simply a storage file. You can't just rename .dat to .mpg and expect any VCD creator to produce a Video CD correctly. Why not? Because a .dat file doesn't have the same kbit/sec as a .mpg file. i.e. The Video stream bitrate is not correct. If the .dat is simply copied from one Video CD, and used to create another, the .dat will be place the SEGMENT dir, when a true Video CD has all of its .dat file in the MPEGAV directory. As a result the new Video CD created will not work in stand alone Video CD players. In order for the .dat file to be placed in the correct directory by a VCD creator it must have the following bitrates: Video:- 1152 Kbits/sec Audio:- 224 Kbits/sec. If this is not the case, then you *cannot* make a proper VCD from what you have. At this time I know no way of fixing the .dat file so that you can make a proper VCD. Question: Yeah well, I only play my VCD's on the computer so who cares if it's not properly written? Answer: Well, for one traders care, as awareness increases, other VCD traders are only trading with people who can provide perfect images, or perfectly ripped images. So as the standard for proper VCD's becomes accepted, your collection will become untradable. As well, as DVD players are creeping into the market, alot of people prefer to watch their vcd's on the home theatres or big screens instead of the computer, Some day you will probably own a DVD player, wouldn't you like your collection to be playable. And last but not least, the longer that people continue to trade bad .dat files, the longer it will take for the standards in VCD trading to change. Question: Okay - I want a perfect VCD, how do I do it?? Answer: Very simply, there are a number of tools out there to help you to make your perfect cd's. The Best way to rip a cd is by using a complete disc image, most preferrably BIN/CUE images. The reason is, this is the only way to preserve any of the 2.0 enhanced features on a VCD, many VCD's are starting to come with menu's, slideshows and more. If you just copy the mpeg data off the cd's, you will miss all of these enhancements. Question: But some people want to view their vcd's before writing to cd, you can't watch a .bin/cue!? Answer: All they need to do use use the program called VCDGear and they can extract the mpg from the bin/cue/iso/raw. Now you can trade perfect images, and you can also view the image before burning!! You can get this from my tools section of this page. http://trade.in.on.ca/ Here are the instructions on how to make a BIN/CUE image: Full Rip - GoldenHawk's CDR-Win Open goldenhawk Click on the 2nd Icon (picture of a cd) - Copy Disc Select "Copy Disc" in the top radio buttons Change your DATA Reading Speed to 2x (ripping VCD's at anymore than 2X can cause glitches or audio pop's clicks in the resulting file) Take a look in the bottom left corner - it will display a track list, if your cd does not display at least 2 tracks, the CD you are trying to rip is NOT a properly written VCD. So you should forget about ripping this cd. If your cd is 2 or more tracks, Leave everything else alone and click Next Choose the Copy to Image file radio button. Type a name for your image file, you can give it a path here as well ie. d:\aliencd1 Under Reading Error options change the retry count to 4, and set the On error to "ignore" Click Finish and you are done. * note if you get an error reading your cd in goldenhawk, Try using a different reader, or try setting "On Error to Repair". If are having trouble with your IDE reader, go to www.goldenhawk.com for info on using CDR-Win with IDE Drives. USING CDDA: CDDA will work with Supported SCSI CDROM Drives, and most IDE CDROM drives also. To Extract the information from a correctly written VCD use the following command line:- For IDE: CDDA /T 2 /o /MODE CDIRAW /M /MSC X /F Filename For (Supported) SCSI: CDDA /T 2 /o MODE CDIRAW /F Filename Where X is the drive letter of your CDROM drive, and filename is the name of the file you wish to extract to. This will create a .mpg file on your hard disk which you should be able to create a proper VCD with. But, make sure you test the mpeg in Adaptec VCD Creator !!! ---===SITEOP NOTES===--- Note: Some nice screeners have been known to encounter errors either during the bin/cue process or the cdda mpeg process. Try both, a VCD released in both formats (ie: cd1 in bin/cue and cd2 in mpeg) is preferable to two cds of mpegs where one cd will burn to VCD and one cd will not reburn to VCD. Please test your mpeg rips with the Adaptec VCD creator before releasing an "mpeg only" release. And, if you do have a really nice screener and for some reason it won't reburn to true VCD please just say so in THE .NFO, we would rather know that we have a really nice MPEG screener release that should be burned as an MPEG than download 1.2 gigs and sit around burning coasters and pulling our hair out mad at you... Some of the programs listed at http://trade.in.on.ca/ don't work to great however CDRWin and CDDA (one or the other) will usually produce the results you want if the VCD you are trying to make an image of is the "real mccoy". ALWAYS DO A TEST BURN FOR YOUR BIN/CUE FILES OR AN ADAPTEC VCD CREATOR TEST FOR YOU MPEGS. Make sure they work and after you RAR them INCLUDE an .NFO & .SFV! IFILMEDIT: SUGGESTION: iFilmedit 1.4 is a nifty little program that will allow you to make small mpeg PREVIEWS of the movie. Suggested size would be 5 megs for a PREVIEW. This is a really nice way to let people know what the quality of the movie is and still release it in a true bin/cue cd image. It is not mandatory at this time, however many people are talking about this idea as a posible "standard". BUT!!!!! DON'T TRY and use this program to convert the entire .dat file to mpeg, I've found that it does not work very well: ie, sound and picture jitters as well as sound and picture running completely out of sync. I have also found it to be less than successful for reburning to proper VCD.